Sunday, June 22, 2008

With 98% of all possible points, Eddie Collins claimed the #1 spot among all Hall of Merit second basemen.

Nearby with a terrific 95% himself, Rogers Hornsby is viewed as second best at the position by our electorate.

Impressive with 90%, Joe Morgan owns third place among the group.

At 87%, Nap Lajoie’s fourth-place finish was a strong one indeed.

Charlie Gehringer won 5th place with 78%, while Jackie Robinson was the final player over 75% with his 77%.

As for the numbers below, since my usual ballot counter only works for no more than 20 candidates, I couldn’t use that one and had to replace it with my old one. Hence, the mess that you see before you.

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Is it constitutional to consider postseason performance? I don't remember anyone mentioning it in the discussion thread, but if it is constitutional that would provide further support to Collins' placement.

I finally got around to adding in the last two ballots, and I can confirm the totals as given by John and re-presented by Howie. The average consensus score (on my -100 to 100 scale used for these) was 89, indicative of very high agreement. 23 of the 23 ballots had consensus scores between 87 and 92. The two exceptions were the last two cast: Joe D. at 83 and EricC at 77. Eric's ballot in particular seemed to be in a contrarian mode - or perhaps more to the point, an anti-Cooperstown mode. (Grich not just ahead of Sandberg and Carew but even ahead of Gehringer; Whitaker ahead of Sandberg; Fox, Doerr, and Gordon ahead of Frisch.)

Robinson was ahead of Gehringer until Joe's vote, which had Gehringer 5th and Robinson 9th.

As with first base, the division of the HoM second basemen into tiers is very clear. We may disagree on order within the tiers, but on the tiers themselves there is very high consensus, such that the space between tiers is larger than the space within them.

How is that surprising? On the one hand, we've got someone who didn't even get a second look from the Hall of Fame, and we're saying he's 14th out of 21 elected candidates, ahead of Gordon and Doerr, way ahead of Fox, way ahead of Mazeroski and Lazzeri and Evers. On the other hand, how could we have ranked him higher. Chris's post has the key: can you argue that he should have been Tier 3? That is so closely comparable to Grich, Carew, Sandberg, and Frisch that a significant fraction of the electorate should have had him ahead of most of that group? (OK, I admit that comparing him to that group is not ridiculous.)

How is that surprising? On the one hand, we've got someone who didn't even get a second look from the Hall of Fame, and we're saying he's 14th out of 21 elected candidates, ahead of Gordon and Doerr, way ahead of Fox, way ahead of Mazeroski and Lazzeri and Evers. On the other hand, how could we have ranked him higher. Chris's post has the key: can you argue that he should have been Tier 3? That is so closely comparable to Grich, Carew, Sandberg, and Frisch that a significant fraction of the electorate should have had him ahead of most of that group? (OK, I admit that comparing him to that group is not ridiculous.)

Chris's post has the key: can you argue that he should have been Tier 3?

My own system sees Grich, Carew, Frisch, and Barnes as Tier 3, with Sandberg and Whitaker at the head of Tier 4, just ahead of McPhee.

I was a moderate friend of Whitaker, placing him 12th.

I think the electorate was a little overenthusiastic about Sandberg and a little underenthusiastic about Whitaker, which is to say the voting is tilted a bit more toward peak than toward career. By the standards of our current electorate, Joe is definitely a career voter, so he brings Whitaker in a bit above the majority of the electorate.

I think the real oddity of the results is Sandberg behind Carew. I mean, through #11, tiers 1-2-3. After that it's just a monumental mess. Not to say it's wrong (or right), but I mean howinthehell do you compare McPhee and Richardson and Grant to Herman or Whitaker. Dartboard. I mean, I disagree with a bunch of the results below #11, but it's hard to get in a lather about it because we was all just guessin.'

But Carew over Sandberg feels pretty wrong-ish to me, and I watched the Twins opener (I mean in 1961) when Pete Ramos 3 hit the Yankees and the Twins won 5-0 on their way to 7th place, and have been watching the Twins for the 47 years since. Carew is over-rated, I'm sorry. In pretty much the same way Ernie Banks is over-rated.

Carew is over-rated, I'm sorry. In pretty much the same way Ernie Banks is over-rated.

So why are you willing to overrate Banks that way, but not Carew? Or have you dropped Banks from where he was on your prelim (#5)?

I can't debate meaningfully an assessment of Carew that uses "I saw him play" evidence instead of statistics. You saw what you saw.

But the numbers say that Carew was quite a bit more valuable offensively than Banks at his peak (better OPS+ in a DH league, plus excellent baserunning vs. indifferent baserunning) and a lot better than Banks over his career as a whole (131 OPS+ vs. 122 for Banks). Banks as a shortstop was surely more valuable defensively than Carew as a second basemen, but both were indifferent fielders at those positions. So how does Banks' fabulous peak get him to #5 on your shortstop ballot vs. Carew's #11 placement on your 2B ballot?

If your placement of Carew is based on what you saw and not on his numbers, then it's not surprising that you see his ranking as wrong, because the numbers that most of the electorate has to rely on make it out that Carew's peak was awesome, and while he was no world-beater at first base, he was a whole lot better there than Ernie Banks was, which makes a difference to voters who look at a whole career. And Carew was a far better hitter than Sandberg (131 OPS+ vs. 114 for their careers). Sandberg's defense closes the gap, but no way does it put him way ahead of Carew.

But Carew over Sandberg feels pretty wrong-ish to me, and I watched the Twins opener (I mean in 1961) when Pete Ramos 3 hit the Yankees and the Twins won 5-0 on their way to 7th place, and have been watching the Twins for the 47 years since. Carew is over-rated, I'm sorry. In pretty much the same way Ernie Banks is over-rated.

I'm still looking at the SS/Banks thing, which I find to be much more tricky than the 2B thing. I mean I sort of/almost agree with Chris' tiers at 2B. Once you get the tiers, the other stuff seems a bit simpler. At SS just getting the tiers is a bit harder. First, because we have more 19C SS than 2B. Second, we have more NeL SS than 2B. And third, we have more high peak/short career SS than 2B. So I'm looking at Banks. Still as a peak voter, it's hard not to prefer Banks' SS peak to Carew's 1B peak.

The sharp demarcation between first eleven and next ten 2Bmen may be the most remarkable result in this series of special elections. 105 points is more than four rungs on the "average ballot".

For anyone who is roughly in agreement, or rashly willing to speak for the collective:

Do Grich, Carew, Sandberg, Frisch, and Barnes --ranks 7 to 11 in here-- roughly match Davis, Dahlen, Yount, Appling, and Wright --ranks 5 to 9 among the shortstops?
Meanwhile, do all the shortstops from Cronin down to Glasscock or Ward, ranks 10 to 18 or 19, lie within the gap here, with Glasscock and Ward roughly matching McPhee and Herman, the leaders of the "next ten" secondbasemen?

On the 2nd half I have McPhee around Cronin (both ahead of Yount actually but I'm way below consensus on Yount) with Glasscock and Ward (and Lundy) ahead of the Herman/Doerr/Gordon/etc 2B. I have Joe Sewell in with that group.